The advances in technology have made today's society a more paperless and wireless society. The emergence of global computer and communication networks enable people to communicate instantly and transmit various types of data through these communication networks. In addition to the advancements in computer and communication networks, the technology that provides for communication via the telephone has also made substantial advances in the past two decades. Historically, a telephone network comprised a telephone connected to a central switching box/location. These switching locations were connected through networks of cables. Many of these communication cables were large lines that contained many small communication wires that carried the telephone information. Today, telephone communications are much more sophisticated than the traditional telephone networks. The basic telephone network having a telephone connected to a switching box does still exist. However, because of the variety of telephones that are in use, today's telephone communication network configurations include the basic telephone network and other communication means and devices.
The use of the telephone in a wireless network configuration has made telephone communication more convenient. Because many people access global communication networks such as the Internet via a telephone, it appears that a logical progression of technology would lead to the development of technologies that incorporate wireless telephone devices as part of global computer and communication networks. As shown in FIG. 1, telephone communication networks incorporate both wireless and physical connection devices. Communication towers 10 and 11 provide the connection means for mobile and wireless devices within this network. Each tower has a defined area in which the tower provides wireless telephone connections. As shown, tower 10 serves mobile devices 12, 13, and 14. Tower 11 serves mobile devices 15 and 16. Within a defined area, the tower will facilitate the connection of wireless devices to the telephone network. This connection will enable a wireless device 16 to connect to other wireless devices or to conventional and stationary devices such as homes, factories and office buildings.
In addition to the improvements in the ability to connect mobile telephone devices, other enhancements to mobile telephone technology in recent years make it easy to travel abroad and use one's mobile cellular telephone. Tri-band and quad-band telephones are becoming the mainstream. By dialing one's local telephone number, callers can reach a particular mobile telephone user wherever that user's telephone has service.
With the enhanced capabilities of mobile telephone technology that enables one to use their mobile telephone almost anywhere, frequent travelers encounter to potential issues: cost and inconvenience. Each time one user receives a call, that user is subject to roaming charges. Not all callers know that the person they are calling is traveling (in a different time zone) and therefore might unknowingly be calling that person in the middle of the night. Currently, the only known solution to the cost issue is to purchase a local sim card. However, this means that callers dialing a local number of a person would no longer be able to reach that person via the local number. There are telephones that accommodate more than one sim card, but that would not address the cost issue for incoming calls.
Roaming indicators exist, but these indicators only alert the user of the telephone before they make a call. In addition, call filtering also exists, however this features simply allows users to create lists of callers to “approve” and “reject”. As a last resort, the basic solution the inconvenience issue is for the user to turn their telephone off. However, there are situations when the user requires, needs or wants their telephone to be turned on. “Missed call alert” features exist, but this doesn't address the problem.
There have been other attempts to address issues related to incoming calls and roaming issues. U.S. Pat. No. 6,397,058 to Thibert et al. describes a system and method of controlling the delivery of an incoming call in a radio telecommunications network based on the location of a roaming mobile subscriber. The radio telecommunications network includes a home network, which comprises a Home Location Register (HLR) and a Service Control Point (SCP). The HLR keeps a subscriber profile which includes a termination service trigger, in addition to keeping track of the subscriber's location. The SCP includes a service profile record, which comprises one or more call delivery/termination service options. The service profile record also stores an indication for each group whether an incoming call is to be delivered to the mobile subscriber when roaming in the area or regions covered by the group. A gateway MSC interrogates the home HLR for the subscriber's location when an incoming call is received thereat. The HLR, in turn, depending upon the termination service trigger, queries the SCP for appropriate call delivery options.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,490,449 to Thibert, describes a system and method of providing an intelligent automatic roaming analysis (ARA) that enables a roaming mobile subscriber to use abbreviated dialing regardless of the location of the subscriber in a radio telecommunications network.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,388 to Redd et al., describes a system for allowing a telephone subscriber to selectively block incoming calls for selected time periods or during programmed time intervals. A subscriber may pre-program a time interval in minutes, or a time period (start time and end time) for which some or all-incoming calls are to be blocked. The subscriber may assign caller numbers or personal identification numbers to one of a plurality of tiers of access. The subscriber may enable the call blocking system for selected access tiers. An emergency access tier may be provided to insure emergency calls are not blocked by the system.
Although these methods and systems attempt to address issues related call filtering, these approaches do not address issues related to controlling costs and convenience when a person does frequent traveling. In addition, these approaches are general and provide one implementation regardless of the specific needs and desires of a telephone user. There remains a need for a method and system that can enable a telephone user to configure a customized system for call filtering that specifically addresses the specific needs and desires of that telephone user.